Independent Educational Evaluation

hi everyone, I am requesting an IEE from the school district for my child who has apraxia(speech) I understand by law they pay for it. However, I don't have a problem paying for it and I would prefer to just use our insurance that we have. My only concern is does the district have to still use this new eval. and take what's said in it into consideration when dealing with my child? Since they are not paying for it I didn't want the IEE to really not be "that important" to them. Does anyone know the law? thanks

We had an IEE done last spring, but not in response to anything that was done through the district. We just wanted to see if we were getting the right kind of help for our daughter, so we went independent and paid through insurance. I just sent a copy of the report to the district, but they did not say anything about it in subsequent meetings.

Another parent did the exact same thing, only she called an IEP meeting to discuss the results, which were done from the same independent person. The school psychologist came back at the mom and said "She has no right to make recommendations to us." They were very defensive about the independent evaluation. Since I did not care one bit what the district thought, I did not get the same defensive response.

Our experience with the independent therapist has been amazing, however. One thing we have learned is that our daughter needs intense therapy, which we have chosen to provide on our own through the independent therapist (paid by insurance). We just found it is best not to mix what we do privately with what the school provides, but we do try to stay on the same page when possible.

Good luck in getting the district to take recommendations from an outside person, but you might be surprised that they are cooperative. It just depends on your district. You would think they would be grateful that you have help for your child. It could save them money, but it gets quite sticky in that they are legally required to provide what your child needs, so consequently if they agree that the IEE has good recommendations for what your child needs, they are legally required to provide it, even if you are willing to provide it yourself. My experience has been that they deny that the child needs something on the off chance that you MIGHT require them to provide it. It would be nice if they could just say something like "Yes, your child needs this service, but we don't provide it, so if you could handle that on your own we would be grateful." Instead we have heard things like "That program has not been tested on a model like your child." or "your child would not do well on a test like that." (because they don't want to pay for the testing OR the recommended treatment based on the test results).

By regulation, a parent may request an IEE but not always at public expense. You have been misinformed. Once a parent requests the IEE, the school division is obligated to provide you with information whereby this may be obtained. To the extent you wish to requestthe school division to fund the IEE, the school division either grants the request or files a due process hearing. Should the school divison prevail, the parent may obtain the IEE but at your expense. As for using your own insurance to obtain an evaluation, this is your privilege and you own the report. An IEE obtained by a parent and provides this report to the school divison causes the school division to only "review and consider" the findings.

My overall advice is to collaborate with the school division and discuss your concerns about your child. They may have the same concerns and proceed to help.